If we want our kids to direct their education & be creative, why then do our schools fail them when they don't meet our expectations?

If we observe our schools has standard which are made by our teacher, our leaders, and etc but not our students. We seldom asked them what interest them. Yet, we fail them if they pursue their interest and not our expectations.

Aug 9 2012:
I believe it is constructive for students to meet reasonable and, in fact, ambitious standards for literacy and critical thinking as well as to have some choices in projects and ideas to pursue. We do not want children to miss out on acquiring a strong foundation in basic education because they did not have the understanding or maturity when very young to choose to learn to read.

Aug 11 2012:
As I get ready to start my career as an educator this is something that constantly crosses my mind. How do I maintain that balance of becoming an effective teacher and making sure I don't squander my students' creative pursuits? I'm a firm believer in the arts, and I really want my students to maintain their genuine appreciation and curiosity for the arts as they progress through life. Interesting question that you pose.

Aug 10 2012:
thank you so much for trying to answer my question. I guess we have a lot of ideas out there we just need to look into the fact that we are shaping the future when we educate our students. Its a daunting tasks because we don't get to delete the whole process and start over if we fail. And the sad thing is that we don't suffer for our mistakes but our students and children will.

Aug 10 2012:
I think we fail our students if we don't allow them to pursue their interests. But we also fail them if we don't guide them in the path they they should take. But let us take note, that it is not the path that "we" want them to take but the path that "they" must take.

Aug 9 2012:
As simplistic as this might sound, I think we go wrong the first time we grade a boy for his printing. We know full well that they are not physically advanced enough in fine motor skills and yet we grade them on it?What is wrong with us as societies and as educators? What good does it do to tell someone who is not able to do something that they are bad at it. I think it sets them up for failure in future education or a sense of its flaws and irrelevance if they are resiliant. If someone had graded me on my balance after I had those hemmoragic bleeds in my brain, I would have thought they were pretty obtuse rather than smart to point out an obvious impairment. I think it should start with adults growing up.

Aug 9 2012:
Agreed, there needs to be more positive reinforcement. However, it's not to say that there are those who thrive off of negativity. I see quite a few people just want to show everyone that they're wrong. So maybe this is because they have strong self-positive reinforcement.

But yeah, telling someone you're bad at something makes you want to just not try and get better. But negativity/pessimism is also needed for those who are too optimistic. Like the overly optimistic will think they can do anything, while pessimistic are like reminders or wake-up calls back to reality.

Aug 9 2012:
lol nope, I didn't mean anything personal to you or to all the positive guys on here, if I possibly accidentally suggested anything. I'm just saying that positivity is great and I believe in positivity more than negativity, but being too positive has its pitfalls too. There just needs to be a good balance.

Aug 9 2012:
One of the most crucial things to my mind is to stay open to feedback from credible persons. You, sir are very credible to me firstly because you are wise and secondly because you are positive. I believe that one needs to be there in the tough spots to have credibilty when someone needs the truth. Consistency. You have it.

Aug 10 2012:
There has to be some criteria in the education system and there has to be an authority or authorities (human or procedurial)for it to be a system in the first place.
What I think people are suggesting is that pupils or students should be the authority in this case. Its like saying that the rules and results of the 100 metres olympic race should depend on the sprinters. We all know that the fastest man in the world may be in some bush in Africa; or the drug dealer that is experienced in his run from the cops; there may be someone breaking sprint records in his street in some obscure corner; but we dont care!
If you wanna be a gold medalist in the olympics you gotta run according to rules!

A system is a system; if parents do not want their kids to be assessed based on certain creteria, then dont take them to school. Great risk! There are folks who didn't go to school and turned out fine; but there are the pathetic drop outs too.

Aug 10 2012:
Kids have new and fresh minds just like latest brand new highly configured cpu with maximum storing capacity, means a lot of learning and understanding, creative and memorizing capacity.

Schools have their own set educational program, run by the teachers who work in the schools just as they are trained and as they are bound to deliver the curriculum, rules and activities as given schedules. Schools and its teacher copy their programs to fresh minds just as already known good methods.

Fresh minds have their own positive emotions, interest and tendency to learn from what is the latest technology, science, logic and ways of creativity. But regardless what they want to learn, they are forced to follow and copy just as told to them. So, school and teacher both appreciate what fresh minds successfully copy their programs. Besides that, they don't appreciate and discourage kids or students as failed to meet their expectation.

As education and teacher societies, we don't know or we don't learn how the fresh minds can be more capable to become more successful than us, learn and create more than what is already done, even more better than past.

This become a default situation. Educational societies have to reform and research to advance their programs to cope with new fresh minds for bigger success.